Allan slumped against the pole, all of his energy sapped away by the torture of the previous hours. Things he used to care about had stopped mattering several hours ago, and Guy's offer didn't seem so bad anymore. After all, no one would get hurt, right? And it would make this stop. Really, that was the goal. And it wasn't really committing to being a traitor, because he could always just tell Robin the plan back at camp. He didn't have to go through with it. So when Guy came back in, the words slipped out easily: "I'll do it." Guy smirked, and slashed roughly through the rope holding him upright.
Allan staggered as his support fell away, but his pride managed to keep him standing. He tried to blink away the sheen in his eyes so he could see to put on the clothes Guy was giving him back. They were his own clothes, and he even got his tag back. He slipped it into his pocket for now, because all of his rationalizing was somehow not enough to get rid of the shame.
The sharp pain he felt as he moved his shoulders to put his shirt back on was good, because it cleared his brain enough to be able to hear Guy's words. "When you have information for me, come to the Tripp. I will know you are there because you will make this sign on the post." Allan looked up to see Guy drawing a chalk symbol on the prison wall. He looked at it, and gave a quick nod, careful not to reveal to Guy that he knew the symbol.
Back when he and Tom were on their own, they had stayed for a while at an Abbey, where the nuns had attempted to give them some schooling. Most of it was Latin, but they also learned a few English symbols. One of them was this one, drawn here in front of him with chalky white innocence on the dark wall. It meant 'desire'.
As Allan walked back through the woods to camp, he thought about the symbol Guy had chosen. Why did he choose it? Was it meant to communicate something? Was Gisborne mocking him, thinking that he did not know how to read and could not understand what the symbol meant? Was it supposed to be a private joke, that the sign for desire would be the sign he would use to announce that he was betraying his friends for money? He paused at that thought. Was he actually going to betray them? Would he tell Robin what had happened and ignore this deal with Gisborne? Or not? Somehow, even in his groggy brain, the significance of this decision poked through.
So he kept walking, concentrating on steeling himself to reveal no pain when he arrived back at camp. This decision could be made later, when his head was clear and he had discovered why they did not come for him in the dungeons. Why they did not come for him. It was a painful thought, so he put it out of his mind and concentrated solely on the next step. Just the next step. Everything else could come later.
[AN - yes, the sign Allan draws on the post really does look like an old English sign, and one possible meaning of it was 'desire'. No, I did not discover this myself. Some brilliant person over at robin hood bbc yuku . com did. Go check it out, that site is awesome. (Take out all the spaces, obviously.) So this short piece was inspired by that discovery, that I read about on the site mentioned above.]